


Junksen Oneshots

by UnholyHelbig



Series: Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 05:08:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16056170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholyHelbig/pseuds/UnholyHelbig
Summary: This is a collection of one-shots and requests for Aubrey Posen and Emily Junk!





	1. French Fries

**Beca Mitchell had**  never actively thought about scrubbing her eyes with soap. She had never wanted to push the suds into her vision until her eyeballs felt clean against the world that she lived in- but right now was not one of those moments. Right now, Beca Mitchell wanted to take a bottle of hand sanitizer and apply it like eyedrops.

“Oh my god,” She squeaked, actually squeaked. “Oh my god, I want you to take a fork Chloe-“

“Beca”

“I want you to take a fork, and I want you to  _gauge_ my eyes out.”

“Calm down, it’s not that big of a deal!”

The tiny brunette kept her eyes shut, grasping frantically for her girlfriend’s arm. Her nails dug into the exposed skin that the girls button-down allowed. Chloe herself wasn’t too prone to this, but she had walked in on her roommate enough to know that what Beca just saw wasn’t too shocking, in fact, Aubrey was quite fit.

Beca snorted loudly at this, her octave earning a sharp growl from Chloe’s throat. Beca was always the dramatic one, always the one to throw herself into the drama head first and act like she didn’t’ care when really, it was all she wanted to talk about, all she wanted to discuss.

“Let them be, Bec’s.” Chloe mumbled tenderly.

She knew for a fact that these doors weren’t soundproof, and if they could hear what was going on in there, then Aubrey and her date could hear a freak-out in the hallway. “Okay, you just need to lead me to your room- I can’t” Beca let her body weight slump onto Chloe- the girl holding onto the takeout that Aubrey requested in the first place “I can’t walk.”

This earned an eye roll, not that Beca could see it, her other hand clamped over her face to protect her from any other lurking dangers. With a few grunts and groans, Chloe managed to get the girl settled onto her bed; Beca immediately sinking into the plush warmth of the mattress under her. She let the greasy bag of food fall onto her desk, eyes flashing over to her girlfriend who looked like she was about to take a nap if Chloe didn’t stir her.

“I think I need to call out of work tomorrow.”

“Because you saw Aubrey having sex?”

Beca moved faster than Chloe had ever seen before, snapping her dusky eyes open as she whipped her head to the right to stare at the girl, Chloe flopping into the desk chair like bricks were attached to her shoulders. At this point, they were.

“No, I’ve seen  _that_ before.” Beca threw her hands up in the air “It’s who she was riding that I never wanted to think about. Ever, Chloe.”

The older woman made a face at the girl’s choice of words. “Gross, Beca.”

“My eyes, my fucking eyes.” She whined, throwing her head back onto the pillows. She mumbled something, almost too low. “I wonder if Legacy lives up to her name.”

This made Chloe freeze, her fingers running over the cool fabric of the seat she was lounging on. She didn’t think she heard Beca right. Legacy.

The Legacy that couldn’t’ do calculous without Chloe as her tutor. The Legacy that needed little candy spearmint leaves as incentive to study for a big test. The Legacy that needed way too much sugar in the morning, and awkwardly needed to be instructed on club dancing etiquette (Which shockingly, didn’t include the cabbage patch kid).  _She’s the only innocent one they have._

“Repeat that?”

“You don’t need me to.” Beca shuddered, lowering her voice. “I saw things, Chloe. I’m a changed woman.”

A small knock at the door seemed to stop time in the room, Beca shooting up as she squinted her eyes at the door, like she could use the force to magically lock it and make the person on the other side vanish. Chloe pulled her leg up underneath her, letting her chin rest on her knee. She beaconed the girl on the other side in, not sure if she was expecting a flash of blonde, or brown.

Emily looked mousey in Aubrey’s Barden Sweatshirt- one that stretched past her knees and moved past her wrists. Her face was flushed, hair messy on one side while the other seemed almost untouched. Chloe didn’t need to question why. She didn’t want to know that answer.

“Aubrey uh,” Emily’s voice was ragged “She wanted to know if you got her those fries.”

Chloe nodded silently, lifting her chin towards the bag on the desk. It was enough okay for the young girl to step further into the room, Beca tracking her every movement like a GPS. “Em,” She caught the girls attention, lowering her voice “Blink twice if Aubrey is holding you hostage.”

Emily let out her bubbly laugh at this, making Chloe pick her head up from her chin. She looked happy, looked content and more relaxed than she had ever seen the girl. Maybe they had that effect on each other, blowing off a certain amount of steam, but it was still a struggle to wrap her mind around it all. The girl reached forward and wrapped her fingers around the white paper bag.

“We’re fine,” She smiled, almost reflexively “Maybe we should have put a sock on the door. Thanks for the fries!”

As chipper as ever, Emily closed the door softly behind her, leaving the two women in a lifted silence. Not a heavy one, but certainly not one that they enjoyed. “Hey, Chlo,”

“Yeah, Bec’s.

“She blinked like, three times.”  


	2. Sick Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Junksen where Aubrey is sick and cuddly?

**When sickness hit** a Posen, it didn’t come lightly; something that hit in waves and lapped at every inch of them. A slow and steady incline that started with feeling cold even in a burning hot room, landing on a 103 fever and undeniable coughing fits.

Aubrey knew something was wrong when she had to call a recess in the middle of a civil violence case because she had sweat through her button down enough to see the dark bra under the fabric of her shirt. She had started by fanning her notes against her chest, trying to ease the sweat. She unbuttoned the top two slots, reaching for a third during her cross on a certified expert before the judge cleared his throat, uttering a “ _Miss Posen, this is not an Old Navy Dressing room. I suggest we take a short recess._ _”_

She obliged and made it to the nearest bathroom before dropping to the cold tiles, not bothering to lock the door before the bile pushed past her lips sloppily. They were half-way through a long trial. She couldn’t fail her client. She never had before.

During her closing statement, she had turned around and grasped at the small metal trash bin before emptying whatever contents of her stomach was left. The jury winced some letting out groans as they covered their noses.

The jury had the night to deliberate, and Aubrey sunk to the cold stone steps of the courthouse. She held her legs out in a way that wouldn’t push up her outfit, one that wouldn’t squeeze her already nauseous stomach. She had texted her girlfriend, her  _fiancé._ Not something she had to remind herself of often, but when it did slip her mind, it was only because she had no idea if this was more than fantasy.

Emily was kind and compassionate. She would stop in the middle of the sidewalk to angle a leaf under a crawling ladybug to move it away from harm. She always got hot chocolate on her nose, burning her tongue as she was too excited to wait for the beverage. Emily ran back funny parts of movies and snorted when she laughed hard enough. Emily had Aubrey’s whole heart.

Emily pulled her beat up bug to the curb, Aubrey fighting the urge to roll her eyes. Emily loved that car more than anything. She had the obnoxious yellow thing since she was a teenager. It only had a cassette player that was stuck on the same song; a fuzzy version of ABC by the Jackson Five.

Aubrey stood regardless, ready to get out of the courthouse, away from the bright sun that warmed up her already clammy skin. The normally rigid woman didn’t finch away the second Emily wrapped her arm around her midsection, nearly curling into the tall woman. Aubrey almost matched her height with heels on.

“Oh, sweetie” Emily nearly cooed as she started to ease Aubrey down the remaining ten steps towards the open passenger seat door. Aubrey again fought the urge to groan. She hated being fussed over- never once getting sick in the two years that her and Emily had been dating. Because Posen’s rarely got sick.

“I threw up in court today,” Aubrey sniffed, a mix between tears and wincing from the rawness of her throat.

She was curled into herself, resting her forehead against the cool shaking glass of the window. She clenched her eyes shut, swallowing a few times to calm herself. Emily took her eyes off the road for a moment, glancing at her fiancé before turning her attention back to the drive. “I know, Bree.”

“That’s why I called you because I threw up.” She was practically pouting “Not because I couldn’t handle driving home by myself.”

“I Believe you,” Emily had the ghost of a smile on her lips.

By the time she had pulled into the driveway to their townhouse, Aubrey had been reduced to sniveling not herself. She let out a few groans here and there, sniffing once when Emily went over a pothole. But she had remained mostly quiet.

Their place was cute, the end of a long row of identical houses. Some of them had toys pressed into the grass, others took to lawn gnomes. There was a red painted door and black shutters. The perfect place for the two of them. The perfect place when they added a third, or even a fourth.

Aubrey swallowed thickly, her shaky fingers pushing the door open. Emily didn’t wait to hold her fiancé up, resting her hand under the woman’s elbow as she took the briefcase that Aubrey was sure to forget. She was shaky as they walked, still trying to hold her composure.

“I think I’m dying,”

“You’re not dying. Go sit on the couch, I’ll bring down some comfy clothes.”

Aubrey flopped down on the end of the sofa without a second thought, a permanent pout on her face. She didn’t own any sweatpants. She had a few t-shirts and a pair of fuzzy socks. Emily pulled her own pair of pants from the clean laundry basket and an old Barden sweatshirt. Aubrey pulled it on with little question, breathing into herself happily as she curled into a small ball at the end of the couch.

Emily grasped a bottle of water wordlessly, cracking it open as she poured a long stream into a crystal glass. She pulled an old medicine bottle from the cabinet, measuring out the cherry flavored liquid into a small plastic cup. Aubrey was glowering at her now.

“Oh, come on,” She reasoned, squatting down to get eye level with Aubrey “This is going to make you feel better.”

“Mm Mm” She hummed out, pushing her lips further together.

Emily fought the urge to roll her eyes. And Aubrey pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt further down over her wrists. Huffing, almost. Like a dog that couldn’t remember where it buried its bone. A child.

“Wash it down with the water, I promise it’s not horrible.”

That was a blatant lie. Emily didn’t even believe her own words. Nothing about the cherry syrup was appealing. It burned on the way down and left a filmy taste in her mouth. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t somehow get Aubrey to drink it.

“Em,” She was whining now, a high-pitched sound “I’m okay, really.”  

Emily tilted her head, her eyes sharp as she held the small cup of liquid between the two of the “So help me, Bree, if you don’t drink this I will spill it on the rug.”

Aubrey widened her eyes, those brilliant green orbs shifting as she quickly grasped the cup. She parted her lips a few times, staring it down before she tilted her head back and swallowed the medicine. She coughed, scrunching her face up as she thrust the now empty container back at Emily, switching it for the glass of water. She chugged it.

Emily gave her a beaming smile, cupping her hand against the woman’s cheek and running her hand across her smooth skin comfortingly. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Bite me.” She mumbled.

“You need a nap.”

“Maybe.” Aubrey let out in a breathy word, wrapping her fingers around Emily’s wrist to hold her in place. “Lay with me?”

Aubrey had never been the cuddly type. Emily usually curled into her and fell asleep safe in her arms. Her fiancé was never one to beg to be held, but as Emily settled in behind the woman, she realized the exact comfort that Aubrey needed. She pulled her close, finally letting Aubrey relax enough to fall into a dreamless sleep.


	3. Couples Costumes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt; when Emily doesn’t know what she’s being for Halloween yet and Aubrey doesn’t have a partner for what’s considered a “couples costume” (u can choose what costume)

**The second her** bedroom door slammed shut behind her, Aubrey Posen reached for an embroidered pillow and let out a muffled scream into the fabric. A stupid little saying had been written into it’s muted brown color. Something about bears- she had never paid much mind to the decretive piece, and she wasn’t going to start tonight. It was nothing but a silencer.

A stark white wedding dress laid easily among a meticulously made bed. The plaid design of it all was lined up perfectly with the dresser. The room still mostly dark; a propped open window let in cool October air as moonlight washed over a vacuumed floor. The dress had been through a wringer, stained in mud and deviled by long scrapes of Spanish moss that fell from the very trees past their front door.

Things hadn’t gone Aubrey’s way tonight. She had stayed late on a lecture to give her physic’s teacher a piece of her mind, nearly missed the bus back to her lowly apartment. She had just caught it, but not before large tires sloshed murky ice water into her clothes. And now this? Her coworker deciding, he wanted to suck face with the cashier at a ready-mart instead of attending a Halloween party with her.

At least he had been polite about the decline in plans, having left the perfectly trimmed suit in front of her door with a little post-it note that was scrawled with the word  _sorry._ Yeah, Aubrey was close to punching his stupid face. She was dateless and fuming and he probably got a discount on slim Jim's and artificially flavored nachos.

The knock at the door didn’t help much either. It was soft and timid- and god, why hadn’t Chloe pulled herself from the clutches of her room and answered it already?

Aubrey threw the pillow aside, nervily avoiding a lamp that had a flickering bulb in the first place. Her whole body ached, and her lips tasted like mud. Her clothes had just begun to dry but she swallowed back the chills that plagued her. The apartment was quiet. Maybe Chloe wasn’t even home, having gone to the Halloween party herself dawning a pair of flawless feathered wings and cherry red lip stain.

She pulled open the door. A near stranger blinking dangerously at her. Aubrey quirked a brow at her upstairs neighbor, a small woman that looked too young to even be renting an apartment on this side of the city. The artificial lights hung by maintenance shaded her face, and more importantly the innocent beauty about it.

“Oh… Hi,” She blinked like she wasn’t expecting an answer. She raked pools of honey over Aubrey’s stained appearance. The obvious chill that rocked through her was from the cold, she told herself. She looked and smelled like a wet rat.

“I just- well, I found this suit in front of your door, and it looks like a nice suit. But not that I say it, I’m sure you know it’s here. It looks like it’s about to rain, but I’m not Al Roker, so I’m probably wrong and” The stranger clenched her eyes shut, taking a steadying breath “I thought’ I’d let you know.”

Aubrey parted her lips and breathed out deeply, the door creaking as she moved it open a little bit more. This woman was rocking back and forth on her heels like a child awaiting approval. She held the clothing in her grasp, nervously running her thumb over the stinted fabric. She smiled, cheeks heating as Aubrey scanned the woman’s appearance. “How tall are you?”

“What?” It was a breathless mess of a word, the stranger letting tension fall from her shoulders. Relaxed, maybe.

“I mean, you must be 5’6 at least.”

“5’8 but I don’t see-“

“What are you doing tonight?”

Aubrey’s mind was in overdrive. This woman was certainly tall enough to fit the length and stature of the very suit that she was holding, her perfect eyebrow quirked as she clenched her jaw. She was dressed in oversized sweatpants that had  _Braden_ written across the side. An even larger sweatshirt pulled over her arms.

“Nothing, really.” Her cheeks heated “I bought a bunch of candy but not many kids come around here so I’ll just sulk and drown my sorrows in chocolate- and you didn’t need to know  _that.”_

No, she didn’t’. But it was quite charming, the way this woman stumbled over her words when she tried to talk. She nervously tucked a strand of brown hair behind a slowly reddening ear. Again, rocking back and forth on her toes.

“How would you feel about being the Victor to my Corpse’s bride? My date kind of bailed last minute and a zombie bride is pretty lame when there’s no suiter by her side.”

“I mean,” Emily swallowed loudly, looking down at the suit “What do I have to lose?”

“That’s the spirit.”

Aubrey stepped further to the right, allowing the woman inside of her tiny little apartment that smelled overwhelmingly like pumpkin spice (courtesy of a bubbly roommate that had a monthly subscription to white barn.). She closed the door, leading the way to her bedroom like it was second nature to bring a stranger into its cool clutches. She followed nervously.

She gasped when she saw the torn wedding dress, it almost made Aubrey’s heart swell. She had worked hard to make it look just distressed enough to pass as dead. Had even invested in paint in a sickly blue and grey shade that would really complete the look that Tim Burton had originally sculpted.

“Whoa, this is so cool-“ She glanced at her, eyebrows knit.

“Aubrey,”

“Emily.”

“Well, thank you, Emily. Halloween is kind of my thing.”

She nodded, taking in a gulp of air as she set down as she glanced around the small room. It was homey, if not a bit chilly from the window that was left propped open. Aubrey could almost smell the incoming of rain that Emily had mentioned so feverishly in her opening statement. Aubrey smiled at the woman’s awkward nature before she grasped the wedding dress. “You can change in here if you’d like. I’ll take the bathroom.”

“Okay,” She agreed, scratching the back of her neck as a few stray edges of hair fell from the bun on top of her head, framing her face as she managed a nervous smile.

Aubrey bowed out, pulling the wedding dress that she had found at a thrift store on ninth over herself, wiggling into it with enough gusto to break a sweat. She had taken more than enough time to squeeze the beaded top closer to her grasp, trying not to let it slip as she knocked back on her bedroom door, the unreachable zipper cold against her skin.

She got a weak response, pushing the door open as she got a good look at Emily. Her neighbor upstairs had folded the sweatpants and jacket easily against the corner of the dresser. She had let her hair down, the suit fitting her as smugly as Aubrey hoped it would. A bit of silver peaked from a vest and a back puffed ascot lay untied against the white shirt.

Aubrey’s color drained and the base of her stomach heated unexpectedly. She steadied herself against the doorframe, struggling to keep her dress up as Emily adjusted the collar of the blazer. A lopsided grin graced her lips. “This look okay? I need some help with this tie, though, I don’t really know how to fasten one. I only went to one girl scouts meeting and, yeah, didn’t’ pay much attention.”

“You look perfect,” Aubrey beamed, “Could you um, zip me up?”

Emily stared for a moment, almost mesmerized herself before letting out a squawk and propelling herself across the room where she moved the zipper easily up her back, fingers cold, but not nearly as frigid as the ruined clothes Aubrey peeled from herself earlier. She turned Emily’s touch not entirely dropping as she reached up and grasped the black ascot.

“How come I don’t see you around much?” Aubrey’s asked, trying to ignore the fact that Emily shivered under her touch, breath hot on her cheek.

“Oh, I’m what they call in introvert.” Emily chuckled, chest rumbling at her own joke. “Like I said, my plans were pretty much drowning my sorrows in snickers and turning out my porch light.”

Aubrey laughed, looping the fabric around as she secured it. Emily really did look like Victor, pale composure and all, her touch lingering, but never enough to warrant discomfort. The two of them standing there in innate silence.

“You know, Aubrey, usually I ask a girl on a first date before getting her into a wedding dress.”

“Is that so?” She asked, masking a smirk.

“Oh yeah, I’m a real Casanova too.” She beamed “Next time I’ll even bring my dog, his name is scraps. Though, he is a little boney.”  


	4. Honey.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Based on the anon ask, prompt: “Aubrey Posen believed in lots of things, but love was not one of them. That is, until she met Emily.”

**Aubrey Posen believed**  in a lot of things. When she was ten years old, she started to believe in ghosts. Her mother was driving down a long-winded path and fog seemed to take up every inch of spare expanse that North Carolina had to offer. It was cliché, really. But the man she saw standing on the side of the road dressed in a slate grey uniform convinced her that ghosts were real, as real as the clothes on her back and the blanket that was covering her lap. She didn’t’ say a word, but she knew her mother had seen him too.

When she was sixteen she believed that things happened for a reason. A letter coming in the mail stating that her father was going back into the infantry. He would travel and see the world. He would write, and he would stop writing. And she would sit between her two older siblings, blindly reaching for their comforting touch when they got the news that he was coming home. But only to pack his things.

She crashed a car when she skidded on black ice at nineteen, learning to believe that it was okay to make mistakes. Her older brother pulling her into a minty embrace instead of screaming about his wrecked jeep. He wasn’t angry, instead, he squeezed her shoulders and hastily warned her never to scare him like that again.

Aubrey Posen believed in a lot of things, but love wasn’t one of them. That is until she met Emily.

She had felt the light like never before that day; a star that hung high in the sky pressing heated rays against exposed skin. It was a warmth that she couldn’t ignore, the atmosphere clear despite the musty scent of rain taking up home in her lungs. Aubrey loved the smell of the rain and the even sharper scent of incoming snow. That thankfully didn’t present itself this early into October.

Booths lined her on either side, some of them boasting signs that were carved expertly. They advertised peaches and corn. Sweetgrass baskets that had been so expertly woven in the spare time of their crafters. Aubrey bit into an apple, her teeth pressing past soft green flesh as sticky juices dripped down her chin. This was home, for her, this had always been home.

Aubrey didn’t’ miss the stuffy suits or the smog that coated New York Cities risen air. The cases that stacked against her desk were long forgotten as her mind buzzed with nothing other than making her way carefully through the farmers market. Everything was muted and enhanced all at once. She loved her visits home and loved the stillness of them even more.

“Oh, shi-“The voice pulled through the low buzz of the market, not many people looking up from examining their tomato’s, poking and prodding until it looked bruised enough to beg for a discount. But there she was, struggling to lift a case of mason jars from the back of a rusted old ford.

They dripped in a golden syrup, bubbles catching a certain aim of lighting from the very sun that warmed Aubrey’s cheeks. She could practically taste the sweet substance as it barely sloshed around. The booth simple stated:  _Honey._ Little symmetrical combs were slathered in yellow at the corner of the board. It was simple, and at this rate, it was going to lose all of its merchandise.

“Here, let me help you,” She said.

Aubrey wasn’t one to rush towards a stranger. She wasn’t one to try and show off by lifting something that was a little too heavy, even for her. She could feel the subtle burn in her arms, and the moisture that collected against her collarbone. None of that could make up from the bright, almost impish, smile she received in return.

She set them down on the shaded countertop, rolling her shoulders back as she looked at the stranger. She was tall, even with mud-stained converse on, sporting a worn t-shirt and a flannel. The girl’s features were soft and kind, and damn, did they feel like the sun. The flower that bees were drawn to driven by the very nature instilled upon them.

“Thank you so much,” She panted, pulling the red baseball cap from her forehead, she dragged her forearm against it, smearing dirt and sweat. “You have no idea how much trouble I’d be in if I dropped those.”

“It was really no problem.” Aubrey just chuckled at the girl's frantic words, she was still panting in the heat. Watching as the stranger ripped into the box that she had just set down. “What are you-?”  

“Here,” She produced an amber colored jar. “It’s on the house. Assuming that you actually like honey, this here is the best stuff. Homegrown. Well, home harvested.”

“Thank you,”

Aubrey absently ran her fingers over the printed label. It had that soft yellow background that her booth occupied. The same logo too, but up close, Aubrey could see the tiny script of  _Emily’s_ right above the bulky text. She glanced up, Emily suited her. She started to take the rest of the mason jars out of the cardboard box, humming along to an odd tune that the lawyer couldn’t quite place.

She walked away that day, the weighted glass of honey still prominent in her hand as she shifted its contents. There were little flakes of yellow pollen swimming in the stagnant warmth. A certain heat pressed against her abdomen, an odd place for the sun to reach, but she swallowed it back.

 **The coffee coated** her throat, it’s bitter edge never too strong. Willow Heights was never known for an intoxicating brew. Instead, she settled for the burnt flavor and the washed-out white mugs that used to have logos sprawled against them. Now it was just little black spots where the paint hadn’t exactly faded yet.

Still, Aubrey gulped it down hungrily to wash away the taste of the pie that she had eaten, nothing but crumbs were left on her plate and the waitress dressed in a sickly mint green ensemble took that as enough of a sign to clear it and refill the mug with little conversation. She almost liked it that way, the quiet.

There was a mother watching her son destroy an ice cream Sunday in the corner of the diner. He was missing his mouth, coating his fingers in a sugary mess of black syrup and cherry juice. She winced at the thought of how sticky he would be, but the woman seemed not to fret too much. She gave her a knowing glance. It practically screamed  _kids will be kids._

There was, of course, the cook, but his focus was on spraying clean dishes in the back of the house. The waitress smacking her gum like the blood that rushed past Aubrey’s ears. It was rhythmic in a gross kind of way. The bell above the door was accompanied by the deadpan cold that ran through town when the sunset.

The girl from the farmers market.

It had in fact rained. She was quick to peel off her soiled jacket and hang it on the small coat rack by the door. An unused umbrella rested against the glass door frame. A missing cat poster with eminent water damage dog-eared at the excess of wind.  

“Hey, Em” The waitress mustered a sunny disposition. “The usual?”

“You bet,” She rubbed her hands together in the heat of the restaurant. Aubrey couldn’t help but stare, her expression was soft and captivating all at once. She had seen beauty before, really, she had. But Emily had a certain rawness like unsweetened honey. It was smooth but had a bitter kick that she craved the taste of. “Oh hey,”

Aubrey blinked dumbly for a second, licking her lips. They tasted burnt, the coffee still lingering as she registered that she was actually being spoken to. “Hi”

“Mind if I?”

Emily gestured to the stool next to hers. There were other seats available at the counter, but Aubrey had the feeling that if she had taken any of those, she would be caught staring violently at the girl. Not out of lust (Not entirely anyway) but out of pure captivation. She gulped down the sour taste in her mouth as she nodded.

The waitress eyed Aubrey as she set down a big glass of what smelled like root beer in front of Emily. The girl denied a straw before downing a quarter of it in one fail sweep.

“I’ve never seen you around before, stranger.”

“Stranger? Oh. I’m not from round’ these parts.”

She laid on the southern accent thickly, a hint of a smirk pulling at her lips. Emily seemed to redden at this. Aubrey supposed they did sound a little too dramatic for her taste, almost as if she could reach into her belt and find a pearl embossed pistol at the ready. All she would have to do is spin the barrel and hope she didn’t’ load it.

“Very funny,” Emily nudged her shoulder. She smelled like rain. “I just don’t know what a girl like you is doing in a town like this one.”

“I’ll have you know, I grew up here.” Aubrey straightened her back and raised her own mug to her lips, taking another long gulp of stale caffeine. “What gave it away?”

“That you haven’t been home in a long while?” Emily quirked a brow “No one in Willow Heights has a manicure.”

Aubrey’s grey stare flicked to her nails instinctively. They were painted in a nude color, but they had been done professionally. Half of her wardrobe was pressed and trimmed and tailored just to fit the standards of a courtroom. A small farming town like this one didn’t’ even have a nail salon. But Aubrey liked it that way.  

“You’re very observational for a beekeeper.”

“Thank you,” she straightened her stance, drawing in another gulp of her soda like the heat of the carbonation didn’t bother her at all. “You kind of have to in my position.”

Aubrey could only imagine. One false move and little insects with sharp stingers would find their way past a strong suited woman. It wasn’t like dealing with slimy defense lawyers who had slicked back hair and venom dripping past their teeth- no, this was something delicate.

The waitress chewed her gum silently as she set a large plate of chocolate chip waffles in front of Emily with some silverware. Whipped cream was stacked to the very top, a few strawberries made dents in the mountain. “Thanks, Erica!”

She hummed in response and filled up Aubrey’s cup once more, earning a grateful nod in response before she went back to playing some matching game on her phone. The mother in the corner of the diner hastily tried to wipe away the syrup on her sons' fingers.

“Oh my god, how can you eat that?” Aubrey chuckled into her cup.

“What? You mean this?” She shoved a strawberry into her mouth, chewing happily “Easy. Breakfast for dinner is the best.”

Aubrey cocked a brow, sitting back in the bar stool as she watched the woman slather her food in a coat of maple before cutting it into small little pieces. Breakfast was something that was limited to a protein bar, lunch a lack-luster salad, and dinner was something from the vending machines at the office. Certainly not a mountain of cornstarch and syrup. Emily didn’t’ seem deterred in the slightest as she shoved her fork into the bite she had just cut.

“Open.”

It was a demand, not a question, Emily holding up the fork as she watched Aubrey expectantly. The blonde let out a heaving sigh, close to rolling her eyes as she leaned forward and took the bite that Emily so easily offered. She could barely stop the moan that slipped past her lungs, blood rising to her cheeks as she got a triumphant smile in return.

“The secret is the honey in the batter,” Emily wiggled in her seat, letting the fork drop onto the plate as she beamed “Technically it’s mine so I’m biased but-“

She was interrupted by a fit of giggles, her body turning to face Aubrey, almost completely. Emily beamed, covering her mouth to muffle a snort. “What? Seriously?”

“Nothing, it’s just” She leaned forward.

 This moment wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. The chairs that they were sitting in creaked and groaned under their weight. The light in the far corner of the restaurant was buzzing away like the very moths that they attracted. The rain was pressing against the window and blurring the downtown streets. And Aubrey had whipped cream all over her nose.

“Here, let me get it.”

Emily’s touch was soft. Her fingers cold against Aubrey’s cheek as she brushed her thumb easily against the whipped cream on Aubrey’s nose. The sugary substance coated the pad of her finger. She brought it to her lips, licking it clean with a stray smile and a simple shrug.

“Thank you,” Aubrey rasped.

Aubrey Posen believed in a lot of things. The ghost that she saw on the side of the highway in North Carolina. The way her father still sent Christmas cards every other year, still containing blatant wishes and a twenty-dollar bill. How her older brother still laughed at the wrecked jeep that he let her borrow for one night too many.

Most importantly, Aubrey Posen believed in Emily.

The way she would tell the story of how they met for years to come. The box of honey would grow in size and the jars in weight. She would change the small storm outside to a monsoon and the kid in the corner digging into an ice cream Sunday had vanished altogether.

She had bought Emily a bouquet of sunflowers. Then a waffle maker, even a dog. But the most important thing was a ring. A simple gold band with two green stones and a flashing diamond. Because she made Aubrey believe enough to drop down to one knee, to envision a future never imagined.

Yeah, Aubrey Posen believed in a lot of things, but love was not one of them. That is until she met Emily.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright... I loved this prompt and I have an original book that I've worked on for YEARS about a beekeeper who falls in love, so I just translated it. But let me know what you think!


	5. Whisky Neat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I don't know what this is. I found it in my drafts and finished it up!

**Emily had always** loved the way the lights hit the stage. Its wicked wooden surface had faces stained into the layout- each one she would stare at, trying to make out the expressions on the floor. They always looked sad, but then she thought, _if people were stepping on me all day, I would be sad too._

The theatre was never her true element. Her mother pushed and prodded and tried to get her to love the nature of standing in front of an audience. To feel those very lights pressing close to her cheeks, warming every inch of her body under some bulky costume that belonged in a Victorian museum.

She would lean back on the red upholstered chairs in the front row of whatever auditorium picked up her mother’s screenplay, her legs crossed in front of her as she tried to squint at the textbook that lay in her lap. The words were hard to focus on, hard to distort from the orders barked out harshly by whoever had become in charge of the production. 

“Stop!” The word was rough, disjointed enough to get Emily to lift her stark eyes up to the stage. She wasn’t sure where to look.

Emily had encountered many directors during her childhood, practically growing up in the wings of the theatres. They were always kind to her face, she was a little girl, the daughter of the mastermind. There was no reason not to show a façade of niceties. Though, the young girl knew exactly what lie behind those words.

“I’m not feeling it.” The little man spoke, his copy of the script pinched between his fingers. “ _you’re_ not feeling it.”

That seemed to be a common theme throughout every show she sat through. The directors would pitch a fit each time they didn’t’ see absolute emotion seeping through the performance. Her mother had told her once, it all had to do with Stella Adler. A famous teacher that believed in pulling pain from past experiences. A brutal technique that turned Emily off to the idea of acting altogether.

“The play is not in the words, it’s in you.” The mousy man spoke, his voice a low growl. Emily had never seen anyone with so much passion and animosity. He was peering up at center stage, moving to cross his arms over his chest.

“Oh, would you stop quoting that old bag?” Emily raised her eyebrows at the proclamation from one of the only two scene-holders on the stage. She was the shorter of the two, daring enough to wear mostly black despite the heat that carried in the atmosphere. Sweat was glossing her skin, lips raw and red from the countless reworks of the show. “She died. Get over it.”

“Beca, she shaped the history of acting.” He hissed, practically hopping up on the stage to gripe at her.

“In the ’20s.” The woman beside her spoke up, her fire-filled mane of hair bouncing with ease each time she uttered a syllable. “You know what I think, Ambrose?”

 _Ambrose? What kind of a name was Ambrose?_ Emily thought quietly to herself as she ran her fingers down the edge of her textbook. Of course, he hadn’t given it up earlier when she sunk into the seat at the end of the first aisle. It sounded pretentious and other-worldly. Maybe even like a salad, the more she thought about it.  

“I think we’re doing the scene perfectly.” The woman with gorgeous crystal eyes boasted, planting her hands on her hips. “I think that we’ve hit every single line with as much passion as we can get. You just want to see Beca and I get handsy on stage for a few more hours.”

“I, uh-“Ambrose flushed, his cheeks heating up as he dropped his shoulders. Chloe had a way about her that commanded respect, even the director crumbled under her resolve. Just a single glance from a woman with that much power was enough to bring blood to Emily’s limbs. “That is not what this is-“

The rest of his words were drowned out by a vanilla scent, it tickled her throat, Emily tensing up as the seat near her creaked loudly. The whole theatre was desolate, empty, other than the first couple of rows. There were hundreds of other seats to take, dozens.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Beca punch Ambrose in the face.” The stranger purred, her voice gravelly as Emily turned her attention the woman’s way.

The light reflected off of her features just right. There was no telling if she was classically beautiful, it wasn’t like she had stepped away from a Victorian staircase with ease- a flowing dress coating every inch of her smooth skin. Instead, it was effortless; blonde locks framed hard features, deep green eyes shined with amusement as she watched her friends on stage. A deep black t-shirt dipped a little too low, making Emily’s mouth dry and her mind halt.

“Aubrey Posen,” She produced a perfectly manicured hand. “Stage director.” 

“Emily Junk.” She reached forward, wrapping her fingers around the cool ones of the woman. It made a rough chill rock through her body- she was shocked that she could even form words. “Screenwriters daughter.”

“Mm,” Aubrey hummed, squeezing once more before she pulled back. “Katherine is a creative genius.”

“That’s what people tell me.” Emily chuckled, glancing back up to the stage where Ambrose had pressed himself so close to the edge. He was yelling, wildly waving his hands in the air as Chloe lifted her eyebrows in amusement. “Are they always that…”

“Loud? Difficult? Incessant?” Aubrey laughed slightly, throwing a wink Emily’s way. “Oh, I think those are their only three settings, little one.”

Emily tried not to scoff at the nickname. It made her feel warm inside despite herself. If anyone else other than this stranger had called her that she wouldn’t’ have said anything, but she wouldn’t be happy either. She smiled, though, pushing a breath past her lungs.

“They seem nice enough.”

“They are.” Aubrey shifted in her seat, leaning closer to Emily as she lowered her voice. “Don’t’ tell Chloe I said this, but I _might_ actually be able to stand Beca sometimes.”

Her voice was husky, sending icy chills up her spine as she tightened her stance. It made Aubrey smirk, she had an effect on the girl, one that made her interested, intrigued. “Ah,” was all Emily said, not able to function.

The stage director had no boundaries, but that didn’t mean Emily wanted her to. Her touch was warm as she let it fall to rest on her knee, Emily not daring to move. She couldn’t even if she wanted to, Aubrey held her interest. She noticed the little brown flecks that cut through forest green in her eyes, the way she wore a lopsided grin like well-fitting jeans. It made Emily’s stomach flutter.

Emily could see a few reasons why Beca would be harder to warm up to. In this short hour and a half that she was trying to focus on studying, the girl had argued for about twenty-five of them. It was amusing, and she had more than one plausible point. Even now, as she knelt down to get in Ambrose’s face, she knew what she was talking about.

“Do you act, Emily?” Aubrey pulled the girl from her thoughts. Her mouth still dry as she stuttered through her answer.

“No, I-I mean I used to.” She spoke “My mom had me take a few classes when I was little. Improv, really, but still.”

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

Emily didn’t’ know how to respond to the question. She couldn’t really get a read on Aubrey, not with the woman’s hot touch still on her knee, soaking through her jeans and stirring up ironic chills. Aubrey seemed so genuine, so interested in her answer. No one had ever asked her if she _enjoyed_ something before. They just told her that she should do it based on their own experiences.

“I couldn’t do it.” Emily suddenly rushed out, flashing her stare up to the woman’s. “I was good, I think, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull from… to draw on old memories to put on a show. It was too painful.” She swallowed. “I think if pain is written well enough, you don’t have to take from memories. Because its right there. It’s now.”

She was being blunt, and real. She had put herself out there, and she was hoping by the simple look on Aubrey’s face that she understood. Emily wasn’t supposed to talk like this. Her mom was- is – a theatre legend. There was no way to curse one of the main teachers of acting without offending more than half of the people in the room.

“Ambrose!” Aubrey called, making the girl next to her shrink a bit into the back of her seat. It dug into her spine, Emily raising her eyebrows as Aubrey tightened her grip around her knee. She didn’t move her stare. It bore into the younger woman.

The argument on stage stopped abruptly. The director snapping his jaw shut as he whipped his attention toward the woman in the shadows. Emily’s blood ran cold. “I think we’re done for the day.”

He didn’t hesitate, “Right. Go home, girls.”

“I’m sorry if I-“Emily cleared her throat. “Did I offend you?”

“Oh, of course not.” Aubrey laughed, a bubbly sound that Emily thought she could get used to hearing if she was ever so granted the pleasure. “I just figure you have a lot to say, you know. Child acting prodigy who hates acting, and all.”

Emily lifted her chin, bemused as Aubrey glanced at the stage. Beca was shoving random items into a burlap sack, standing swiftly as a handmade direct contact with her backside, deep midnight eyes flashing back to Chloe as she boasted a grin. Not at all guilty. The small brunette didn’t’ seem to be bothered, instead, her cheeks just flushed.

The girl would much rather focus her attention on the interaction ahead of her instead of the feeling in her stomach. “So you what? Stopped practice just because you want to get to know me better?”

“My friends are quite loud.” Aubrey swallowed, “I just thought I could get to know you better. If you’re okay with that.”

Emily felt okay with that, or at least she thought she was. Anything that had to do with that deep golden-rimmed stare had her attention. It was better than the history book in her lap or the droning of the play in front of her- not that her mother was a bad writer, it was just something she had heard (And seen) a million times over.

Aubrey was fresh, and Aubrey was busy removing the headset from her ear before lifting the base of her shirt to unhook it from her waistline. It exposed a smooth patch of skin that would have made Emily drool with even more heat if it weren’t for that one ounce of self-control that she continued to hold onto like a mouse with a crumb.

She produced a wolfish grin and tugged the end of her t-shirt down before the front got snagged on her belt buckle. The mic pack was left on stage right alongside the bags of the actors, and Emily had an easy guess of what belonged to who (she was pretty sure Beca wasn’t a Mermaid tail type of girl.)

“Are you legal, Emily?”

“Barely.” She scoffed, not thinking before she spoke. An instant heat rose to her cheeks as chocolate brown eyes slipped up to forest ones. Amused ones that seemed to like when she floundered. Her grin was wolfish at best. Arousing. “I-I mean, yeah. Turned twenty-one last week.”

She was tempted to fish her newly printed ID from her pocket and produce it to the woman in front of her. Half of the instinct had to do with the need to please, the other half was that childlike wonder that had her showing it off to the old woman on the subway next to her. She barely felt legal, and with studying for her history test she hadn’t rung it in properly, but Aubrey didn’t need to know that.

“What’s your poison, kid?” Beca was hovering by the edge of the stage now, having pulled a towel from her very black bag and pushed it against her wet collarbone.

“Uh,” Emily floundered “Whisky neat.”

“Regal. Nice.” Beca hopped down from the stage without a second glance. She smelled like tobacco and warm vanilla, even after running through a scene a million times. She seemed to click her tongue at Chloe, earning the nod of the head before she went back to shoving her own items in a bag. “We go out after practices. Think Mama Junk would be okay with you tagging along?”

Her mother had recruited her to deliver a rewrite to the playhouse. Ambrose turned eight different shades of red before he agreed, and she decided to stick around for some peace and quiet before her train got here. She hadn’t expected to watch through half the practice before realizing she hadn’t even touched her textbook. She certainly didn’t know a woman like Aubrey would make herself known.

“Sure, yeah. I’d like that. If it’s not imposing too much-“

“Please, we invited you, legacy,” Beca said, leaving a blinking Emily in her wake as she walked from the theatre. Chloe was close behind, giving Emily a small squeeze against her shoulder in a comforting way before following Beca towards the busy city street. It bathed the dark rows of seats in a warm golden light if only for a second, but it was enough.

Emily shouldered her back, making sure that her textbook was secure.

“First drinks on me,” Aubrey said with a slight smile against the edges of her lips as they walked up the towering aisle. “Do you even know what a Whisky neat is?”

“Not a damn clue. I read it somewhere, I think.”

“Don’t worry.” Aubrey chuckled “That is definitely not your drink, little one.”      


	6. Night Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Can you do something with the glasses thing someone posted?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, this sucks and I wrote it in fifteen minutes but I felt pressure to post at least something for you guys so pardon the awful one shot if you can even call it that.

**Emily shifted uncomfortably**  in her seat. It was the annoying plastic kind that had two studded bolts in the middle of a crafted metal bar. They used to use the same type of chairs in middle school. The ugly navy-blue kind that would rip out her hair if she shoved forward too quickly, or turned to grab a paper from the person behind her.

Right now, she ran her fingers over the edge, hoping that the sticky substance under the chair wasn’t gum. If it was all she would have to do was turn to her right and ask Aubrey to fish some of that nicely scented hand sanitizer from her pocket-  _if she was talking to Aubrey at the moment._

She let out a deep huff and crossed her arms over her head like a child that didn’t get her fingers in a cookie jar. This place was too bright; the lights buzzing, or maybe that was a fly that flew in on the collar of her shirt. Either way, it made Emily want to put on headphones (also in Aubrey’s purse) and block out the world. But that wasn’t proper etiquette in any situation.

“Sweetheart, come on.” Aubrey finally broke the silence.

There was a woman sitting with her young daughter in a chair across from them. She peered over the edge of the newspaper she was reading, it was from two weeks ago. Emily couldn’t see how she stood to read out of date news, but she wasn’t about to push her discomfort even further. Instead, she narrowed her gaze at her fiancé, letting out another huff.

“You can’t shun me forever.” Aubrey turned in her own seat, stretching her arm over the back of the chair, her breath hot on Emily’s cheek. “This is for your own good, and you know it. Besides, I’m pretty sure you just touched a piece of gum.”

Emily stared at the woman. She was way too observant for her own good sometimes. She knew it was the perfectionism laced in the Posen’s veins, but it still didn’t’ make it easier when she would stop her to tie her shoes, or protectively unwrap a whole band-aid before fastening it around any cut or scrape she had acquired. Kind of like right now when she dug through her purse for the hand sanitizer that suddenly made Emily’s fingers feel sticky.

She held out her hand.

“Ah,” Aubrey pressed the cap, making sure it was secure. “ _This_ is for people who go to the eye doctor without kicking and scratching the whole way.”

Emily narrowed her stare once more but let her body langue soften, shoulders slumped as the woman across from them scoffed and turned her attention back to her paper. “Fine. I’m sorry I bit you.”

“And?”

“And,” She said through clenched teeth “I can admit when I’m wrong. I need glasses, Bree.”

Aubrey seemed satisfied enough with that answer, giving her a boastful smile before placing a cold dime-sized glob of liquid on Emily’s hand. She rubbed them together until it was gone and the air smelled oddly appetizing.

Emily Junk had always hated the doctors; it didn’t’ matter if it was a dentist or just a regular check-up, she would let things get bad enough to where she couldn’t’ ignore it anymore. She had broken her arm in the fifth grade and passed it off as a sprain until her mother caught her without a long sleeve shirt on. She chipped a tooth when she got drunk and fell off the fold-out table, and Jane had to physically call Aubrey to cart her to a 24-hour dentist.

And then there was this. Emily evidently couldn’t’ see in the dark very well anymore and after almost hitting a few mailboxes and finally taking hers down while backing out of the driveway, Aubrey had made her an appointment with the nearest eye doctor.

“They’re going to scoop my eyes out with a spoon because they don’t work anymore,” Emily grumbled.

The little girl next to her mother let out a small gasp, Aubrey shooting a quick glare at Emily before placing both of her feet back on the floor. The newspaper was lowered again, and this time it was creased with anger. “What?”

“She didn’t’ mean that.” Aubrey said hurriedly “ _right?”_

“Right!” Emily floundered, taking in the quivering lip and the slowly watering eye that was presented to her. The only thing worse than doctors’ offices were crying kids in doctors offices. “That’s not, I mean I didn’t-“

“Emily Junk?”

A nurse in royal blue scrubs leaned against the door with a clipboard in her hands. She looked innocent enough, no pointed horn or winding tail that flicked back and forth. She even had a kind smile, quickly wavering as the little girl across from them started to wail like a siren, her mother hugging her close.

Emily couldn’t get out of there faster, giving the woman a queasy smile before she felt Aubrey follow. “Kids, am I right?” The brunette laughed before getting shoved forward by her fiancé, probably followed by a mouthed apology, but she didn’t’ turn to check.


	7. Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junksen: stuck under the mistletoe at a party neither wanted to go to.

**Emily Junk had** always hated fruitcake. It always seemed like the staple dish of the holidays, sung in songs and displayed in its glittery nature throughout the cartoons of her childhood. She had gladly taken a slice with a smile when it was offered up on a plate with a little snowman on it.

It’s icing dripped and clouded, the scent a mix between fruit and ginger. To the human eye, it looked amazing, but it was weighty and the second Emily bit down on the plastic form that carried a good portion of cake, her stomach lurched.

Turns out, Fruitcake tastes like hamster food smells.

Emily’s eyes scanned the work party that she had been forced into. This was all Karen from IT’s doing. She was proud of the old family recipe and everyone knew that Emily couldn’t really refuse anything offered up to her- it wasn’t in her nature. Not even when she and one other assistant were conned into licking 300 envelopes containing Christmas cards.

Her tongue was still sore, and right now, Emily needed to get rid of the cake in her mouth before it fought back too much. Greg from accounting was chatting away with Cathy from social relations, and Nina from housekeeping kept to herself over the bowl of punch that hopefully hadn’t been spiked yet. Emily looked like she was in the clear.

She shifted the food in her mouth before taking a once-over of the room again. Emily leaned to her side and let the bite of fruitcake fall into the potted plant in the walkway that she had been lingering in. Emily tried to casually cover it up as she shifted the dirt around with her fingers, but she needed to get that awful taste out of her mouth.

“That bad, huh?”

Emily pulled in a sharp breath that burned her throat with its force. That didn’t’ sound like Karen from IT, which was a major relief, but it did sound like someone important. It wasn’t her fellow assistant at the company, or the CEO herself, but it was-

“Aubrey,” She said, capturing Emily’s attention completely “Aubrey Posen, from legal.”

Emily took in the woman that stood before her: Her hair was usually up and her body was hugged by tight pantsuits or even the occasional skirt. Bur right now, right now, Aubrey Posen wore simple jeans and a red knit sweater that brought out the blush in her cheeks and the pale green in her eyes. She held a bottle of beer that she was nursing and looked effortlessly…stunning.

It made Emily feel nervous in her leggings and tacky Christmas sweater:  _Jingle my Bells._ How did she think that was a good idea?

“You’re Emily, right? Gail’s assistant.” She got a small nod as Emily continued her mute state, taking everything that was Aubrey Posen in “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Karen you spit out her fruitcake. I won’t tell Phoebe that it was her potted plant either.”

“Thank you, I-uh, fruit cake is not good.”

“No, it is not.” Aubrey chuckled, it was a light sound that rang out like Christmas bells that hung on the side of a red painted sleigh. She took the plate the held the remaining edge of cake in her hand and dropped in in the nearest trash can, tactful and effortless. “We can just um, yeah.”

Aubrey dusted off her hand on her jeans and smiled at the woman, raising the bottle to her lips as she took a generous gulp of alcohol. She placed a finger on the girl’s shirt “I like your sweater, it’s cute,” She traced the printed candy cane.

Emily fought back a mix of a grunt and a moan at the sudden and innocent contact. She wasn’t drunk enough for this. Hell, she wasn’t drunk at all. In fact, Emily Junk was painfully sober and everything about the liquid courage she craved was inaccessible with a charming defense attorney for a multi-million dollar company flirting with her.

She let out a small laugh “Yeah, it’s pretty cheesy huh? One of the worst holiday pick-up lines that I’ve heard.”

“I’ve heard worse.” Aubrey drew her hand back and shoved the tips of her fingers into her jeans. It was almost a challenge, the way her eyes lit up. “Go ahead, hit me.”

“Okay,” Emily eased out, she scrunched up her nose and wracked her brain. She and a few friends used to have an annual bad pick-up line contest, they thought they were brilliant, but they were also thirteen years old and had no idea what any of them meant in the first place. “Hmm,”

“Oh, don’t choke now, Emily!” Aubrey had humor laced into her voice “We haven’t even started.”

“Give me a second, give me a second” Emily waved her now free hand in the air. “Alright, how about… that’s not a candy cane in my pocket, I’m just glad to see you?”

Aubrey lifted her eyebrows, swirling the warming beer around the amber glass. “Not bad, not bad. If you were really packing, that is.”

“Alright miss hot-shot lawyer, what’ve you got then?”

A mysterious grin seemed to form against the woman’s red painted lips. She seemed to be contemplating what she said next, maybe she had nothing up her sleeve after all, but either way, she spoke naturally. “Want to meet Santa’s little helper? He’s not so little if you know what I mean…”

“Again, would totally be more effective if you had the proof to back that up.”

They stared each other down for a moment before bursting out in a fit of laughter. It seemed to be the only thing keeping both of them afloat in a corporate party- one that was stifled and hot, and heavy in the completely wrong way. Emily needed a breath of fresh air, and Aubrey had opened the windows full-force.

Aubrey wiped the tears from under her eyes and sighed heavily. “Okay, to be  _fair_ I’m new to the whole hitting on girl’s thing. I guess it’s not too wise to recycle pick-up lines, then?”

“This is you hitting on me?” Emily raised an eyebrow.

She had always been an awkward and clumsy mess, someone who had often dropped papers and tripped up the stairs instead of down. But in the five minutes that she was talking to Aubrey, that had been forgotten. Other than spitting up cake in a potted plant.

Aubrey’s face seemed to grow closer to the same shade of her sweater as she cupped the back of her neck. “How strong are these beers?” She squeaked “I’ve had six, so probably not that strong, but-“

“Oh my god,  _you guys_ ”  

Emily froze. Now that voice, that voice was Karen from IT. She felt her stomach churn and Aubrey quickly stopped stumbling over her words, instead dropped her hand to her side and looked at the frizzy-haired woman to her side. “What?”

“You’re under the mistletoe.”

“Oh.” Emily rolled her shoulders back, deep chocolate eyes glancing up. They had been under the little plant tied with red string. It was swinging back and forth from the draft of the door being opened. It was a tradition, much like fruitcake.

Emily had an aunt that would pinch her cheeks at every party she went to and tell her not to wander under the mistletoe before kissing her face a million times and leaving her stunned, covered in lipstick. Granted, Emily hadn’t been to too many parties since the obliged family gatherings, but it didn’t make this any less jarring.

Greg, Cathy, and Nina were all staring at them with expectancy in their eyes, and Karen was practically buzzing with her own excitement. Emily let out a heavy sigh and relented, leaning forward as she pressed a quick kiss to Aubrey’s cheek, leaving the outline of her lips on smooth, electric skin.

“Boo,” Nina mumbled, “You can do better than that, Junk.”

It was Emily’s turn to redden, and suddenly it didn’t’ feel like the two of them like before. Her jumbling mess of a self. “That’s not fair, I mean you- and you’re staring, it’s a  _plant,_ Karen.”

Aubrey blew out a breath of hot air before she reached forward and grabbed the green tacky sweater that Emily wore. She pulled her close and Emily’s senses were suddenly overwhelmed with mint and the lingering taste of beer. She relaxed into the embrace and snaked her arms around Aubrey’s neck. Aubrey hugged her close, the two working in such synch that Emily had lost herself, running her hands over the hem of Aubrey’s sweater.

Greg let out a low whistle that broke the kiss, Emily keeping her eyes clenched shut as she kept her head balanced against Aubrey’s. She smiled dorkily and continued to breathe in the ginger scent that drew her in like a siren song. “You taste like fruit cake, Emily.”  


	8. Baby, It's Cold Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Junksen, Baby it's cold outside

**The cold bit**  easily through the woolen gloves that covered her fingers in a half-assed attempt to keep warm. They were too small, and her palms were dry enough for the fabric to catch. Her hands were tightened against the leathered steering wheel. She had shut the car off more than ten minutes ago.

Emily’s nose was an angry red as it threatened to run, the heat long gone as flakes of snow hit the glass and melted away to a runny mess. Each one looked different under the street lamp on the edge of the corner- the color unnatural and blue instead of a warming gold. Her breath forming in quick edges.

She had reached for the keys in the ignition more than once but never got around to pulling them out. Snow was subtly forming against the wheels of the small beat-up beetle that stuck out like a yellow thumb in the wasteland of winter. “Come on, Emily. You can do this.”

Emily breathed in evenly, snatching the keys from the ignition before opening the door with a loud groan. Her boots left black footprints in the small layer of snow, her shoulders rolled back as she glanced towards the white house with the green shutters. Multi-colored Christmas lights lined the roof and created a bit of a beacon. One of the only houses decorated on the block.

Emily knocked on the door before she lost her confidence or even her gull. It was snowing harder and her gloves from the children’s section of Walmart weren’t quite cutting it. She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked down towards her booted feet. Her whole body felt numb.

The warmth that radiated from Aubrey Posen’s house carried a certain type of familiarity. One that bathed over her along with the rest of the yard. It made the Christmas lights see less bright, and Emily’s strength seemed to waver once more. The scent of vanilla and mint coated her lungs.

Aubrey’s breath made itself known in the winter air, strands of perfectly tamed straw hair fell into her ghostly eyes. She had a deep redness to her cheeks and wore what could only be described as an oversized sweatshirt over joggers. Her fingers quickly ran down the painted doorframe. She was rendered useless for a few moments, her brain edging catatonic as she glanced at the thickly falling globs of snow before speaking. “Emily? God, you’re going to catch a cold out there. Come in.”

Emily opened her mouth to protest but her words got stuck in her throat. She stepped into the foyer that felt so familiar but left a sour brine on her skin. She was quick to pull off the woolen gloves and flex her fingers as Aubrey closed the door behind her. “Thanks, Aubrey.”

“It’s getting bad out there,” Aubrey ran her hand down the door, finally allowing herself to turn around and pull herself closer. She raked her eyes over Emily’s stance. “What are you doing here, Em?”

“I uh, I was in the area and thought that I would come by and pick up that box.”

Emily, in fact, wasn’t in the area. She had been sitting at home scrolling through old pictures on her phone when a certain type of heat rose in her chest. It wasn’t anger or fondness in the slightest, but it was something. Something that had her pulling on a scarf and pushing the sleet off her buggy. Her car sputtered, but it made it.

Aubrey had put the box together two months ago, but Emily couldn’t bring herself to step foot back in this neighborhood. Her roommate had tried to travel down this street when December first hit and lights were strung up. She wanted to get a good look at them- but Emily denied it, getting her to pull to the opposite side of the development instead. Now she was standing in the middle of a house she didn’t want to feel likeness in.

“Alright,” Aubrey said nervously, her words and echo of herself. “I’ll uh, I’ll go get it, yeah? You can sit down if you want.”

The blonde walked towards the living room, her shoes loud against the floors. Emily didn’t’ want to sit down. There was a grey blanket that hung against the edge of the couch, even from here she could see it. Her heart panged, and she leaned back on her heels. No, she didn’t want to sit down on that couch. If she hadn’t already been in contact with Aubrey she would leave with her tail between her legs.

Emily put her hands in her back pockets and flexed her fingers out of nervous habit. The television was droning on in the background, volume lowered, and papers spread out on the coffee table next to a half-full mug of hot chocolate. Aubrey must have been working before she interrupted her.

Aubrey reappeared with a medium sized box. It rattled around, and Aubrey seemed to be staring at it with a look of pension. Her lips were pursed. She swallowed thickly and glanced up when she felt the change in flooring under her socked feet. “Here’s all of it,” her fingers curled around the box “I can help you out to your car, or-“

“No, I should be fine.” Emily said a bit too quickly, softening at the flicker in Aubrey’s eyes “I mean… I’m sure it’s not that heavy, thank you, though.”

The woman in front of her dug her nails into the surface even more. If she shifted, she was sure to leave little crescent shapes against the surface. There was block lettering that marked it  _fragile_ and Emily thought that was ironic.

“Okay,”

Aubrey sounded broken as she handed over the box. Emily’s chest tightened and her hands instantly craved warmth again; There was her polaroid camera with a few blanks but a lot more than weren’t, a scarf that Emily had given to Aubrey when she was visibly chilled at the state fair that they ventured to, and a little-stuffed penguin that Aubrey had won her that very night. The lump in Emily’s throat solidified.

“It’s really coming down now.”

“I really ought to go.”

“It’s bad out there.”

“I’ve got to get home.”  

“Baby, it’s cold outside.” Aubrey willed herself to say “That old buggy of yours won’t make it three blocks, and you can’t take the city bus in this weather I-“

“You’ve lost the right to call me that.” Emily had been quiet at first, her voice was barely above a whisper, but it was still enough to break the lawyer’s train of thought. It was Emily’s turn to dig her nails into cardboard and she could swear they were in the same grooves that Aubrey had created. “It’s not fair to either of us, Aubrey.”  

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s fine,” Emily echoed, letting out an even breath. “I should really be going.”

Aubrey swallowed thickly and pulled open the door, the scent of freshly fallen snow marked Emily’s lungs as the two of them watched winter take its toll on the small suburb. Emily’s mouth was dry, and her heart was pounding, and before she knew it, she was walking without a purpose back to her car. The light was gone, and she was in a cold darkness, wishing she had put her gloves back on, and wishing even more than she hadn’t torn them off in the first place.

Emily balanced the box against her knee as she struggled to open the back of the buggy in a strange attempt with numb fingers. She couldn’t find her keys. She sniffed, feeling an unchecked warmth against her cheeks as tracked tears instantly dried against her skin. The box teetered and fell to the ground, spilling photos- ruining them. She stifled a cry as she dropped to her knees and scrambled to save them, save anything from the three and a half years.

Instead, she came up with nothing but cold a sopping wet penguin stuffed animal that had been stained by oil-soaked snow. Emily stood, swallowing thickly as she looked at the little toy that Aubrey had spent more than twenty dollars on in a game of ring toss. She was confident that she would win eventually, and after a while she did. Emily never wanted to let it go. And now it was ruined.

“Emily,” Aubrey caught her attention, standing at the edge of her drive with a coat pulled over her sweatshirt and eyes red. She was breathing heavily, her breath stark and noticeable against the falling snow.

“This is a stupid toy.” She admitted with a stuffy laugh “Its eyes are lopsided, and penguins aren’t even blue, you know that? They’re black. But never blue.”

Aubrey was quiet, watching every move that the woman made as she turned to face her, half in the street next to her beat up car, the light at the corner was shading her features and even more, her tears. “But I loved it no matter what because you wanted it for me  _so_ bad. Because you cared enough to almost beat up some carny that had rigged the game with magnets at the bottom of the jars anyway. And now you’re just… letting it go? Letting me go?”

Her voice had cracked at some point during her words, and her throat was raw. She wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the emotion that seeped through every word. Aubrey parted her lips, wanting to speak, waiting to. “I didn’t have a box.”

“What?”

“That box? I didn’t have it, Emily. I told you I did because I wanted to see you again. I needed to see you again. But everything that was in there wasn’t thrown into some stupid little box. That penguin was on my bed, and the scarf was hanging by the back door, and the photos? They were on my nightstand.” She had lowered to a whisper “I flip through them every night.”

Aubrey took a step forward, her eyes hitting the stuffed animal in Emily’s hand before she placed a cold finger under Emily’s chin and lifted the purest brown eyes she had ever seen to her stare. “You never left me, Emily.  _Never._ _”_

The kiss destroyed any thought of cold that Emily was feeling; her fingers finding solace in Aubrey’s golden hair as soft lips completely overtook hers. She tasted like chocolate and breathed warmth into every inch of her body. A tingle that started at her toes and wracked all the way up to her own touch. Emily whimpered into the familiar embrace. The penguin had dropped the ground once more as she pulled away, out of breath and broken.

“You can’t drive home in this,” Aubrey finally said, struggling to move brown locks of hair away from Emily’s watery gaze.

“I suppose not.” She whispered, taking an easy step back. “But I can try.”    


	9. Blackout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Emily and Aubrey share a conversation over a cigarette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what this is, a lot of angst! But if I don't post anything again before tomorrow, Happy Holidays!

**The whole entire** street was engulfed in milky darkness. The velvet color of black fell like a curtain over the city of Atlanta, and the suburbs likewise. On Saturdays, it was common to hear the lull of a house party and the revving of an engine that sputtered in an attempt to show off a tricked-out vehicle.

But it was Wednesday, and it was quiet. Quiet and dark.

Emily Junk wasn’t afraid of the dark. Her mind didn’t make shapes out of mailboxes or conjure up demons with dripping yellow canines and crimson non-blinking eyes. She didn’t’ have to jump from orb to orb of gold when she was walking home, and she didn’t’ need a night light after she turned five years old. Not even the one with the little fish on it that her mother found at the thrift store.

None of that explained why Emily was laying against the hood of her yellowed car. The paint was chipping, and the radio had a Jackson Five cassette tape in it, but Emily didn’t’ care. Her feet were propped up on the silver bumper of the little buggy. She was running her finger against a piece of sweet grass that she pulled from the ground at its root, sweat licking at her collarbone as it dripped down her cleavage.

“The heat getting too much for you?”

Emily glanced up, blinking a few times under the blatant light of the full moon. It made everything a tinted blue- and her stare hadn’t gotten used to it before now. But she could see the clear outline of Aubrey Posen, the white t-shirt that she wore and how it stuck to the nave of her back. How she carried a box of cigarettes that she tried to conceal, not expecting anyone else to be out here.

“You can smoke, you know,” Emily said, avoiding the question. “It won’t bother me.”

Aubrey let out a soft scoff as she leaned her whole body on the car as well, her arms folded in front of her as if she was contemplating something, perhaps she was. She drew in a soft breath before tapping the edge of the carton against her palm and lifting it up to her lips. She pulled out a cigarette swiftly as if it were a routine engraved into her mind. The sparking of her lighter lit up the side of her face a few times before it caught.

Emily felt an odd sort of comfort in the tarry scent of tobacco and burned paper. Aubrey blew out a steady stream of smoke and shook her head. “I only do this when I’m stressed, you know?”

“Hmm, I don’t blame you. The girls still playing that stupid party game?”

When she had hastily excused herself, Beca downed her third beer of the hour and placed it in the middle of the natural circle they formed. She suggested spin the bottle. “Yeah, of course, they are. You know how handsy Chloe can get in the dark.”

“Is that why you’re out here?”

“No, I figured it would be cooler. It’s not by much, but at least there’s a breeze.”

Emily had been breathing in the soupy air, letting it coat her lungs like a thick brine until it became hard to even pull a single ounce of life in. It reminded her of a summer she spent at her aunt’s house in New Orleans. It was the wet kind of heat that stuck to her skin- and that feeling was only amplified by the darkness, but the city-wide blackout.  

She took a daring step and grasped the cigarette from Aubrey’s fingers before the tip made contact with the woman’s lips once more. Aubrey leaned further into her stance and lifted a pointed eyebrow. She scoffed as Emily sucked in. The bitterness of the tar and smoke made up for the heat of the night.

Emily blew out in a long exhale and tapped the edge of her finger against the cigarette, letting sullen ash drip to the ground. She watched it until the embers flickered out. “You know, my mom… she worked two jobs. Not high paying ones or anything, certainly not ones enough to cover the bills.”

Aubrey didn’t speak but gratefully accepted the cigarette back, pinching it between her forefinger and thumb.

“The power was one of those things that just kind of kept going out. I would get home and realize how hot it was, how sticky. I would still try the switch by the front door anyway because there would always be light left, you know? But it would never work.”

The girl to her side shifted her weight, letting the beetle creak and groan in the silence of the street. A dog was barking loudly a few blocks away. She let Emily take her time.

“When my mom did get home she would make a games out of it. She wanted to ease my worry I suppose. Like we would set out candles, you know? Situate them until we could see what was in front of us. And she would open the windows too… but it would always get so fucking hot.” Aubrey took a long drag of the cigarette and passed it back to Emily, holding the smoke in her lungs as her shined eyes scoured creased features.

“What would you do? When it got too much, I mean.”

“Different stuff. Once we ate all the ice cream in the freezer to cool off because it would be soup after another hour. We brought all the blankets from the house out onto the porch too, slept there for the night a few times.” Emily shifted uncomfortably “It’s easier to stay outside when it gets like this. When it gets dark. I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“I never said you were.”

Emily nodded softly and brought the cigarette up to her mouth, inhaling until her lungs burned too much and the ashy taste engulfed her. “It’s too dark inside. Too hot.”

“Then let’s stay out here,” Aubrey said, plucking the object from Emily before throwing it into the puddle that formed at the edge of the gutter. The murky water soaked through the paper and made it a sickly grey- almost like a corpse sinking into mud. “That’s a bad habit, you shouldn’t smoke.”

Emily scoffed and leaned her head against Aubrey’s shoulder, breathing in her scent; vanilla and tobacco in the subtlest hints. Sweat was soaking through their shirts and glossing their skin. Aubrey snaked her arm around Emily’s waist, keeping her close in the heat of the night. Emily focused on the moon, the only source of light they had. And Aubrey focused on much more.          


	10. What's Up Danger?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I'm just going to straight up say: I don't know that much about the spiderverse and I am genuinely aware that if I turn this into a longer series than I will just be mish-mashing a bunch of stuff from the comics. But I do want to try this out so please let me know if you guys want a part two... or a series.

**_Aubrey [12:29]_ **

_Emily, come get your child._

The text message vibrates against her hip as if it had its own sensors built into her skin. The phone was hot; a mix of metal and plastic and coding that Emily hadn’t the mind to comprehend. Whoever invented and enhanced the cell phone in the first place hadn’t considered angry wives, or the quickest way to get to them. A simple typed out message that didn’t exactly need to be strapped to the bottom of a pigeon’s ankle and flown fifty miles west anymore.

She let out a deep sigh, fingers tightening around the object. Before she ran her thumb against its edge letting the screen grow dark. The neon light had been bathing her face in an odd way- it stretched her nearly unrecognizable features and distorted them. Anything was better than the flickering bulb that hung above them in the little sandwich shop.

The air still hung heavy with the scent of fried onions and grilled bread. It made Emily’s stomach clench, the sizzle of raw meat against a hot surface had her mouth dripping, but she swallowed it back. “You know, why is it always _my_ kid when she does something wrong?”

Emily’s breath was hot inside of the mask, the younger woman glad that she had popped a mint before sliding the breathable fabric over her eyes in the first place. Her right hand had been preoccupied with a struggling man. They all looked more or less the same to her; deep shadow from nights of planning poorly executed robberies, a black color scheme, some form of mask covering their own eyes (Emily was just glad the political circuit had died down)

She could smell his rancid scent through her own attire, her head tilting to the side at the white edge of her hood revealed something more- a bright splash of crimson tacked with that genuine and recognizable spider webbing. She had called in a favor or two to get this thing back up to par.

“You two should get counseling.” The man grumbled, fingers gripping at the collar of his shirt as the fabric ripped into raw skin.

The clerk from behind the counter parted his lips, hands raised and brow dripping in a fresh brine of sweat that could have easily been from working the grill or the intensity of the situation. “He might have a point.”

“Man, whose side are you on?”

Emily tossed her phone onto the counter, not bothering securing it against the latex as she just as quickly curled her fingers into her palm and landed an easy punch against the soft skin right below the man’s jaw. She didn’t need superhuman strength to throw a decent punch, and she had let him fall to the stereotypical checkered floor in a heap of himself before drawing in a breath.

“Therapy? You think?” Emily asked, crossing her arms over her chest as the clerk’s fingers shook, hands lowering but not all the way. “You call the cops? I mean. We hardly ever fight- I guess I _have_ been working a bit more lately.”

The man was shaking, and she could practically smell the sweat that dripped and soaked unevenly against his white logoed shirt. She had been walking home when she heard the first sign of a weapon being cocked- the scent of gunpowder reached her next. She hastily pulled herself into the alleyway and got dressed in the near dark, barely getting a chance to pull on her turquoise converse that Aubrey had gotten her last Christmas to replace the dingy ballet flats that she had worn to near shreds.

The police lights started to flash onto the floor with that awful and disorienting pattern. The blues and reds mixed unharmoniously into a purple mess. They hadn’t turned on their sirens, but the tires were deafening against the wet pavement. She grabbed her phone and slid it back into the pocket of her suit. “Oh, sorry buddy, that’s my queue.” She took a few steps back “But if you have any more relationship advice give me a ring or something, yeah?”

Emily gave a little mock salute before leaving the way that she came in, the little bell ringing in signal. The men in blue were a few blocks away but there was a bit of a crowd forming. She could feel her heart race just a bit more as she glanced down at the shooters around her wrists. They were new. She aimed them towards the gutters on the neighboring building; apartments that had a few golden rimmed lights, but nothing more or less.

“Please work,” She whispered to herself, pressing her arm forward as a sticky strand of webbing shot from the contraption and pressed its flowered shape against the brick. “Now _hit the little green button to pull”_

Emily repeated the instructions that were given to her in the first place. She let out a bit of a squawk as the device contracted and pulled her at full speed towards the building. There were a few gasped from the group behind her, her feet instinctively shooting out as she stopped from face planting on a vertical surface, fingers with enough grip to hang against the surface. “Hell yes, Doctor Conrad!”

Her voice was hushed, but she awkwardly swung her leg over the top of the building and pulled herself onto the to rooftop, struggling to catch her breath as the first police car came to an even stop in front of the little sandwich shop. She kept low, turning onto her back as she stared up at the clouded sky.

Emily Junk hadn’t always been in the hero game. Hell, she had _never_ been in the hero game.

But there was a certain edge of guilt that had created a catalyst in the base of her heart when she realized that she had her powers, had gotten them from nothing more than a little lab created spider that dug its venomous fangs into the open edge of her palm. She was satisfied with an apology and the promise that her hand wasn’t going to fall off and sprout its own set of legs. Instead, she got this.

Her phone vibrated, and the neon screen burned her eyes. Aubrey’s contact information lit up the side of her face. She reached up and pulled the hot mask from her features, breathing in the toxic New York air that almost seemed cleared up here. The gravel was digging into her spine.

“Go for Emily,”

“She’s impossible,” The voice was an instant soothing agent, clearing the tension in her shoulders. “I swear, Em. First, she wanted Chicken nuggets. So, I made them, but she was a _ngry_ because they weren’t shaped like dinosaurs and refused to even eat them” 

Emily bit back a smirk, “Bree, baby, the regular circles are a deal breaker. You know she loves to make the triceratops thing fight with the one that has tiny arms.”

“T-Rex, come on, that’s the first dinosaur they teach you.” Emily could hear her flick on the water of the sink “It’s nearly nine. You going to be home anytime soon?”

The younger woman grasped the edge of the building, gravel crunching under her as she glanced over the side of it. The police tape had been evenly rolled out and caught the downside of the wind. They had wrapped the clerk up in a tinfoil blanket and he was talking to a man- a man that Emily could recognize even with his back turned; that stature, that suit, that tie that blew in the wind. She had gotten it for him last Christmas.

“I’m on my way now.” She finally decided, her eyes trained on the enemy she didn’t’ know she had.


	11. Difficult Little Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is 110% going to be a longer thing. I got to writing and I've got two chapters already completed. So, this is just a little preview of something that's to come. Hopefully, you guys enjoy and let me know what you think!

**The alcohol had** an electrifying effect on a lightweight such as Emily Junk. She could practically smell a single frothy drink and feel the effects of something that her body hadn’t quite gotten used to yet. It made it easier on her friends when they were the ones buying, but every high would eventually come to a crashing low.

Tonight, her low was drinking alone in the corner of a hole-in-the-wall bar. It wasn’t in the part of the neighborhood that a corporate woman such as herself would dare allow herself to venture into without the accompany of someone twice her stature, but its blatant open sign left a lasting impression on her. It buzzed, it’s neon color reflecting on the street. 

Emily tipped her head back and gulped down her second (maybe it was the third) whiskey of the night. She chewed on the one ice cube that still rested it the bottom of the spotted cup. Natalia would have called the bartender over with the commanding wave of her hand. It could capture anyone’s attention, she didn’t’ even have to call out.

She had hailed a cab so easily in the Manhattan rain the night that the two of them first met. Her hair was sprinkled with droplets of water and her breath was like a separate object in front of her. Emily had been trying to get a checkered car to notice her for ten minutes. She remembered feeling like a drenched rat that belonged in the subway system. Natalia didn’t’ see her that way, though. And they shared a cab.

That, of course, was before Emily found the German beauty in her own bed with the downstairs neighbor. She was ever the charming one, and he had _just come over to fix the shower head_ like Emily had promised she would do a million times, but she never did.

“Chole,” Emily slurred her words, leaning her head against her hand “I should have fixed the showerhead.”

The bartender that stood in front of her looked fuzzy. Everything looked fuzzy at this point. But it was her spot. The spot that she used to make the room feel less like it was spinning and more like she was sitting on a bar stool that she could feel the springs press through.

“It’s Chloe,” The woman responded, taking the glass and letting it clank behind the counter as she dropped in in a black plastic bin. She placed both hands on the top of the surface. “What showerhead?”

“The one in my apartment, keep up.”

“Sorry, go on.”

Emily let out a triumphant huff of air and Chloe grabbed a bigger glass this time, but it was water. She set it in front of the young customer. She ignored the straw that was placed in front of her and took in four generous gulps. “My girlfriend wouldn’t have fucked the neighbor if she didn’t invite him over to fix the showerhead.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Chloe gave the girls arm a slight squeeze before reaching down and grasping the bin of used glasses. The bar didn’t seem to be very busy on a Tuesday night. She balanced it on her hip, a white towel stained with god knows what was strung over her shoulder. “Fuck her, then.”

“I wish I had.”

“Not what I meant. If she has the decency to cheat, then she doesn’t deserve you in the first place. You got a ride? Last call is in a few.”

Emily frowned down at her water. She had walked here and eaten two bowls of the corn nuts that they placed out on the table. Natalia would tell her not to touch those, that so many people who had their hands in their pants also had them in the snack dishes. Corn nuts tasted like gravel anyway, but Emily scarfed them down out of spite. She regretted it now.  

“I can walk,” She said, pointing a finger towards the bartender “You know, you are very nice, Chole.”

“Chloe,” She reminded gently, “I’ll call you a cab.”

The bartender had vanished after that, and Emily realized how empty the bar was. There were metal signs tacked to the wall. Route 66. Feel good Avenue. They weren’t real, the colors were too clean to be. Instead, they were purchased and hung up with putty. There were neon ones too, they blinked and buzzed like the open sign. Emily couldn’t even hear a cook in the back. Just the woman dropping her dishes.

Emily took another sip of her water, this time slower as if not to drip the cool liquid onto her shirt. Her blazer was slung against the back of the chair and her heels were down by her feet. She had a big meeting today. Crushed said meeting with her hands tied behind her back. She just didn’t expect to walk into the scene that she did.

She had asked Natalia to kindly collect her things and leave before she broke down in the stairwell of her apartment building. She hadn’t realized the good acoustics of the place until her sobs rang out with little consequence. Natalia probably heard her, and Emily prayed that it hurt.

“They’re on their way,” Chloe walked back through the door, a soft look on her face. Emily wondered if she was always this nice and caring. She had the stature to go along with it, and crinkle lines near her eyes from smiling way too much. “You going to be okay?”

“I should be fine,” She sniffed, dragging her arm very unceremoniously against the base of her nose. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Me? Why is that?”

“I cleaned you out of all your corn nuts.”

Chloe laughed and it was a sweet sound, a streak of red moving through the cracked blinds of the small bar. They both fell into silence as their eyes flashed. They were too bright to belong to a simple cab. Too sporadic and Emily felt her stomach drop even more. They hadn’t heard sirens, and Emily didn’t’ know if it was because of her dulled state or the simple fact that they didn’t’ sound.

The corner street was nearly silent, it was around two am and Emily found it desolate when she wandered into this place nearly an hour and a half ago. She had only seen the headlights of three people and she remembered thinking this was a bad place to put a bar- right by a stop light. The yellowed lamps of vehicles bathed the small bar each time a car dared to turn.

“An accident, maybe.” Chloe offered.

“I’m going to go look.”

Chloe wanted to object, her mouth propping open before she slammed her jaw shut. Emily was already out of her seat and reaching for the door. The bartender let out a deep sigh before she glanced around the bar and followed the woman onto the curb in the coolness of the September night.

The ambulance was parked in the middle of the intersection, all four lights that hung overhead were flashing the same crimson. There were two cop cars, each silent with their blues dimmed.  There were no cars, no metal folded upon itself like silly putty. Nothing either girl could make out with a simple glance.

“Jesse!” Chloe called.

One of the officers, a decent looking one with boyish charm, looked up from his paperwork. He was leaning into another, speaking evenly before his eyes followed the sound of a familiar voice and he excused himself. He half-jogged over to the two of them, a sad smile on his face.

“What happened?” She asked, tucking her hands into her pockets to scrounge up some warmth.

“A hit and run,” He informed her, glancing around the crime scene. “It’s sad, really. Some kid coming home from his job on a bike. Whoever did it skid out of here pretty fast. You hear anything?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Is he hurt?”

The officer, Jesse, glanced down at his shoelaces like he didn’t’ have much in him to speak anymore. He looked cold, his sleeves were short and his tie was long. It was the type of uniform that Emily didn’t ever understand. It was like wearing shorts and sweatshirt in summer. Socks with sandals. A long-sleeved shirt under a tank top.

Emily didn’t’ think she wanted to hear his answer, it was apparent enough by the green look on his face and the way the ambulance hadn’t moved from its very spot. She instead swept the area; there was a liquor store that had closed early on the opposite street corner. A hot dog stand that brought down those tacky cages that locked the bottom. A book store that had a for sale sign in the window. And a woman.

She stood right near the hood of the ambulance, her features shaded in a red hue each time the lights changed their setting. She held a certain type of confidence that commanded the attention in the room, yet, the other two officers hadn’t spared her a second glance. She had ducked right under the swinging police tape and crouched near the front tire. Her blonde hair looked blood red and her knee hit the pavement like it wasn’t red. She moved like she was talking.

Emily crossed her arms over her chest and lilted her head to the side.

The woman turned, shifted her direction until her emerald stare met that of Emily’s in a way that could freeze time. A beautiful woman who would stop traffic even if Emily hadn’t downed her fair share of alcohol tonight on impulse. She didn’t offer up a smile or even the nod of the head. Instead, she turned back around and stood, walking behind the ambulance with little conviction.

“Hey, you alright?” The officer caught her attention. “You look a little pale.”

“Did you see that woman?”

His eyes leaked with concern as he turned slightly and stared at the same crime scene that he had his back to a few moments ago. He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a slight look.

“She was just here, I swear-“Emily leaned over quickly, feeling metallic taste fill her mouth as she spilled her hearty dinner of corn nuts and three whiskeys on the rocks against the pavement, and the Officers clean pair of loafers.

“Oh,” Chloe’s little breath of a voice could be heard as she held Emily’s hair back away from her mouth.

Jesse rolled his shoulders back and swallowed before taking a slight step away. “Get home safe, ladies.”

Emily suddenly felt a lot less good about her choices tonight. She had never thrown up on a New York City police officer before and certainly didn’t expect him to be so polite about it. Maybe it was the rain that clouded the street with a dense fog or a near stranger with a comforting nature rubbing small circles on her back. But either way, Emily couldn’t quite forget those piercing green eyes, and the woman no one seemed to notice.


	12. Open Hand Hit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you do the black Eye au (From Au ideas) where Aubrey is a self- defense instructor and Emily punches her right in the face during a lesson on confidence?

**Emily felt like** this place needed motivational posters. Not the kind that were outlined in black and had a scenic picture of the still water that backed a mountain top. They would talk about synergy and how to work in a company better. But this place was drab enough to need a couple of fluffy cats plastered to the wall.  _Hang in there, don’t furget to be awesome._ She smiled at herself and pulled the t-shirt over her head.

“You won’t completely hate it,” Chloe said, pulling her sneaker into her lap as she struggled with the laces. They were discolored in a powdery terra cotta. She played a lot of baseball with a local league, which is exactly where she had seen the flyer for this course in the first place.

“It’s exercise, Chloe. I hated it before we started.” Beca said, her foot resting on the bench as she laced up her own joggers. “I broke a sweat getting changed. Is that not enough to appease you?”

The answer was a firm no. Chloe had an overbearing sense of safety when it came to people she loved in her life. It started with the little things: she would make sure Emily’s shirt was tucked in before she went to the office and leave little sticky notes on the mirror of their apartment telling her to be confident before a meeting. She had bought Emily a taser when she started taking the subway, and now she had convinced her girlfriend to join them for a lesson in self-defense. It was all because she cared.

“That radio station is sketchy, babe.” Chloe continued, tugging at the tongue of her sneaker before she shoved her foot into it. “I don’t like the way Ryan looks at you.”

“He’s my co-host on a radio show. You don’t know how he looks at me.”

“I gave him a background check when I hired him.” Emily defended, earning a hard glare from the redhead. “or, you know, totally can’t check for personality on those things.”

Emily closed her locker and got a raised eyebrow from Beca. She had been no help to the situation, but she couldn’t’ quite refuse the offer to a class like this. More like she was two drinks in when Chloe leaned close and asked her to take it with her. It was hard to so no to eyes like that, especially when her bottom lip jutted and began to quiver.

That’s how she ended up at the YMCA on her only night off during the week. The locker room was thick with the scent of floral perfume and pool water. “Let’s just give it a chance. I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

“You’re too hopeful, Legacy,” Beca said, slamming her own locker shut with a clang.

The training room reminded Emily of a karate studio that her older brother insisted on dragging her to when she still lived at home. He lasted about a week before he figured out, he wouldn’t’ actually be able to break boards of wood with the strike of his hand. It had the same squishy blue mats and could fit the three of them plus four more, which was a good start. Emily still thought it smelled like feet.

She rocked back and forth on her heels and didn’t exactly know why here palms were sweating as much as they were. Maybe it was the odd number of people in the class or the fact that Chloe had her chin resting on Beca’s shoulder as she tried to scold her into actually behaving for a forty-five-minute class for once in her life.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that Emily’s eyes met with the instructors almost immediately. She had seen her reflection in the mirror, attention caught by the shift of light. She was blonde, a stoic look on ever-tender features that seemed to soften when she lifted her eyebrows at Emily- still in the mirror, her fingers clenching a water bottle that had the YMCA logo on it, and Emily wondered if this was her full-time job or just something she liked to pass along. Either way, she had to be passionate about it.

“Alright, you guys!” She caught the rooms attention as she took perch at the very front, Chloe untangling herself from her girlfriend as she gave Emily a half-hearted nudge, lifting her eyebrows as if to say this looked more legit than a flyer at the softball field. “My name is Aubrey and I am your instructor in self-defense for the next couple of weeks. Can anyone tell me why it’s important to know how to defend yourself?”

Beca crinkled up her nose and raised her hand halfway, “Um, so we don’t… die?”

“Well yes,” The instructor cracked a smile and Emily thought that was about the most beautiful thing she had seen in the world. “Hopefully it would never come to that point, but in your worst-case scenario, it is a primal defense against death.”

Aubrey tucked her hands behind her like she was giving military orders and lifted her chin. “Women walk around constantly in fear. We can’t get to our cars safely anyone without shoving our keys through our fingers to use as a makeshift weapon. But today, I’m going to teach you guys something a little more effective. Krav Maga.”

Emily was trying to pay attention, she was. She had been instantly captivated by the stern looks that were thrown across the room at all the woman who surrounded her. Even Beca had quieted as she listed to the woman talk, which was a feat in itself.

“There are five steps when it comes to defending yourself with Krav Maga: Avoid, Prevent, De-escalate, defend, and then fight if necessary.” Aubrey looked around the room “Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll teach you different defense moves. Today, It’s all about the open-handed strike.”

“Like a bitch slap?”  

Chloe shoved her elbow into Beca’s ribs, earning a sharp exhale of air before giving her a pointed glare. Aubrey chuckled and that smile returned back to her face. The one that distracted Emily to no end.

“Kind of like a bitch slap, but it’s calculated. I’m going to need someone to come up here so I can demonstrate it.” She should have known that those orbs of green speckled with icebergs of blue would find hers. It was met with an almost teasing expression that made her press her legs together softly to quell the heat. Maybe it was the workout clothes. “How about you?”

“Emily,” Her voice broke like a teenager asking a girl to the dance.

“Right, Emily. Can you come up here with me?”

She nodded dumbly and realized with appt speed that Aubrey smelled floral and musky all at once. Like a tobacco pipe filled with fresh clippings of lavender. She almost forgot about the crowd of women watching her and the stupid smug look on Chloe’s face as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Right, so can I see your hand?” Emily nodded again and took notice in the giant floor to ceiling mirrors that her cheeks had reddened significantly. Her skin buzzed where Aubrey had taken her hand as she curled her fingers back and traced them along her heated skin. “A punch can do a lot, but it can also wind up hurting you more than your attacker. You need to strike someone with the base of your palm where it meets your wrist. Nothing above or below.”

She took a step back but continued to hold Emily’s hand. “say I was your attacker, you would keep your elbow lined with you rib and use a punch like motion to hit at my eyes, or my jaw. It works more effectively if you head for the eyes, though.”

Aubrey went through the motions a few times, guiding Emily’s hand in a way that would just barely miss her face as she angled it slightly away before she told the rest of the group to break up in pairs and try exactly as she had- without actually making contact, of course. Emily took note of Beca shaking out her arms like she was preparing for a noble war and Chloe rolling her eyes before steadying her position. Aubrey watched them for a few moments before turning to face Emily.

“What to try it without me taking the lead?” She asked, softly in a tone that she hadn’t used in the class so far. “I promise it’s not as intimidating as it looks.”

“Yeah, yes,” Emily said, squaring her shoulders.

She had gone through the motions like it was second nature, and that wasn’t something easy with someone like Aubrey staring her down with a prideful smile and a bit of a sparkle in her eyes. She ducked down each time, missing the way Emily’s palm thrust forward.

“Is this your first self-defense class?” Aubrey asked, “Because you seem like a natural.”

“No, I’m just like, this super kickass vigilante at night.”

“Is that so?” Aubrey snorted “Than what’s your name? Every great vigilante I know has a super cool persona.”

“White Thunder.” Emily blurted out with a smile.

“Is that because you’re super-fast, or?”

“No.” She deadpanned, “I’m just really pale, and kind of loud.”  

Aubrey laughed and Emily decided that she liked the way her eyes crinkled at the sides when she did. Emily beamed and went through the motions, pushing her palm forward like it was second nature because at this point, it was.

She hadn’t accounted for Aubrey not moving back, or the loud sound that moved through the room when the base of her palm came in contact with the side of Aubrey’s face. She instantly pulled back and sucked in a sharp breath, moving her fingers to her mouth “Oh my stars!”

“Oh, ow” Aubrey hissed out, blocking the area of her eye as she scrunched up her nose and Emily stiffened. “Right in the face.”  

“Aubrey I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“No, it’s fine, we’re fine” She moved her palm and blinked a couple of times, trying to regain composure. A deep purple bruise to the point of black had already started to form against soft skin. It made the color of her eyes pop and Emily’s heart twinge. “I just- have you always had a twin?”

“Maybe you should sit down.”

“Okay, yes, yeah.”

The instructor blinked a couple of times before she allowed Emily to lower her to the spongy mat. Aubrey was a good teacher, that much was clear, if Emily could shift her laser focus to dizzy, then any attacker willing to try something could easily be thwarted. The second thing Emily realized was how many eyes were on the two of them, still standing at the front of the class.

Aubrey put her head against the cool glass of the mirror. “I think the class is over for today guys, good work”

Beca let out something that was a mix between a laugh and a scoff, and Chloe couldn’t help the smile that was on her lips. The rest of the class gave sparing glances before resounding to shrugging their shoulders and going to the locker room that smelled too much like sweat and cucumber melon.

“I’m going to go get some ice,” Chloe said, biting back her smile, “Beca?”

“I don’t know where the ice is- Oh!” She narrowed her eyes at her girlfriend, who gave her a pensive stare “Oh, yeah. No, we’ll find it.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Emily pleaded, kneeling next to Aubrey as the woman pressed her fingers to her temple. She ignored the sound of the door creaking open and then closing a few seconds later. It left them in a start silence for a few moments.

“I’m good, White Lightning.” Aubrey moved her stare to Emily, despite the nasty bruise stretching against her eye, she had a small smile on her face. “Though, I should have known better going up against a superhero.”

“White Thunder, but nice try,” Emily said moving her cool fingers under Aubrey’s chin as she got a better look at the colors that overtook her face. “Oo, I got you good.”

“It’s not the first time, trust me.” She moved a breath into her lungs easily “It is the first time I’m going to make the person buy me a drink, though.”

“Oh really?”

“You’ve wounded me, Emily. The least you can do is entertain the idea of a whiskey.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Genuinely I'm so tired and I feel like I'm dying 95% of the time, so this is literal shit. But I tried!


End file.
